Don't get me wrong: I
have enormous respect for Michelle Obama.
She has brought dignity and purpose to the White House and sets a high
bar in terms of intelligence and style for First Ladies to follow. According to
Jodi Kantor's book The Obamas she is a force to be reckoned with in the
White House. Still, I wonder why she isn't being more 21st century
as First Lady.

The nutrition thing is good as is her commitment to military
families, although word has it there's more front than back there. (One expert on mental health issues of
returning vets calls it "a PR thing.") Also,
I totally get that a lot goes on behind the scenes and that as a mom of school
age kids, it's important to put family first.

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Still, as an experienced professional and a highly
intelligent First Lady with deep convictions, Ms. Obama has an extraordinary
opportunity to address selected critical issues in this uncertain and
contentious time, and to exert at least a certain amount of influence around
current issues such as pay equity and reproductive rights. Instead, she has chosen to play her part
cautiously, positioning herself as a rather traditional First Lady who chooses
safe issues and treads lightly. She is more
Nancy Reagan than Hillary Clinton.

As First Lady, Ms. Clinton set an extraordinary precedent
when she was in the White House. You can
criticize her handling of the health care debacle but not the fact that she
took it on. Nor can you fail to admire
her public commitment to women, even though she took a lot of heat for speaking
out forcefully on their behalf. For those of us who watched her in action in Beijing at the 1995 Fourth
World Conference on Women there was no more thrilling moment in the history of
First Ladies than when she read the riot act to the Chinese because of their
terrible oppression of women.

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Cataloging a litany of human rights abuses the world was stunned
as Clinton declared, "It is time for us to say
here in Beijing,
and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's
rights as separate from human rights. It
is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food or drowned or have
their spines broken, simply because they are born girls," she continued. "It is a violation of human rights when women
are doused with gasoline, burned to death because their marriage dowries are
deemed too small and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic
or prize of war."

It's not as though Clinton is the only former First Lady who had
fire in her belly. Eleanor Roosevelt was
the most influential First Lady this country has ever seen. She actively used her role to advance causes
she deemed significant, including New Deal proposals, educational reform, and
equal rights and opportunities for all in a time of violent racism. As her
biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook said, "Her gift for organizing and her
astonishing energy and determination to do good, combined with her famous name
made her an influential figure in both social reform and partisan
politics." She was involved with the
League of Women Voters, the Women's Trade Union League, and the Women's
Division of the New York State Democratic Committee. "Against the men bosses," Roosevelt
wrote, "there must be women bosses who can talk as equals, with the backing of
a coherent organization of women voters behind them."

There were other First Ladies who
made a mark in their time. Helen Taft advocated for women's right to vote. Edith Wilson undertook many "details of
government" when her husband Woodrow suffered a stroke. More recently Betty Ford transformed the role
of First Lady when she publicly confronted breast cancer as well as her battle
with substance abuse. In 1991 she won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for
"selfless, strong, and refreshing leadership on a number of issues," including
women's rights.

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The wife of the U.S. president
can exert enormous influence on the issues of her time. She has the ear of the president and her own
bully pulpit. So Michelle, where is the real fire in your belly? What is it you truly want to speak out about
or see changed? What do you want your
legacy to be as a 21st century First Lady?

Elayne Clift is a writer,lecturer, workshop leader and activist. She is senior correspondent for Women's Feature Service, columnist for the Keene (NH) Sentinel and Brattleboro (VT) Commons and a contributor to various publications internationally. (more...)